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Habilitation: March 2007 |
Point of Reference Trust
and the Function of Written Agreements in a Late-Medieval Town in: Trust in Writing. Papers from the Fifth Utrecht
Symposium on Medieval Literacy, organized by the Pionier Project
Verschriftelijking in collaboration with the Historisches Seminar der
Universität zu Köln, Utrecht, 28-29 November 2002,
ed. by Marco Mostert and Petra Schulte, (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy
13) Turnhout: Brepols 2005 (in print) Download: rtf-Format / pdf-Format (The article is in large
parts based on a German text ‘Rituelle und referentielle Verwendung von Schrift. Textgebrauch
in der spätmittelalterlichen Stadt’, to be published in
‘Frühmittelalterliche Studien’ 38 (2005). Some new aspects – like ‘performance’ – are
discussed and, of course, ‘trust’ now is more in focus.) 1
Introduction/Abstract This article concentrates
on the 14th/15th century uses of writing in an urban environment. Side glances on its use during the High Middle
Ages, as well as in present times, are necessary. The first theses is not
that the content, but the possibility to refer to a written document, may be seen as the core element of
‘trust in writing’. Using this a starting point, a central
problem of medieval writing becomes apparent: the status of written texts.
Since refering to something prerequisites that this exists by its own right,
if a document wants to serve as point of reference, an ‘autonomous’
status must be attributed to it. Contrary to present times, where writing per se is considered
‘independent’, during the Late Middle Ages, the status of writing
is ambiguous. In taking up Jan Assmann’s concept of
‘canonisation’ with my second theses, I suggest that late
medieval texts had to be ‘made’ independent in order to function
as reference points. The analysis of the prologue of the Cologne statutes,
and the so called Verbundbrief,
will demonstrate how this is done. Examining a conflict within the Cologne city
council, I try to show that here texts primarily serve as points of
reference, rather than to support the content of an argument that was put
forward. Finally, on a more general scale, it is discussed what the late
medieval society might have gained by using writing in this way. It is
suggested that in establishing independent texts as points of reference, the
Late Medieval society may have found a new common ground on which to operate. 5
Outlook
Top Beside the fact that the late medieval city is still a religious
community, we should not overlook the very different life forms to be found
within the city walls. From the 14th century onwards, numerous
revolts may be seen as an indicator of a lack of stability. Establishing
certain texts as an independent point of reference in the discourses of that
time may have helped to soften the problem. Without reflecting on it, people
now differentiated between ‘pointing-out’ to a text and its
content. Thus, ‘referring-to’ could be seen as the new
‘common ground’ being introduced into the societies of that time.
The specific advantage of this differentiated form of communication is that
it puts less weight on the content of a text. This, in turn, allows even
fiercer battles on content, because communication as such is not completely
at risk – one still agreed that pointing
to a certain text is important. Since content is a matter of interpretation,
more than what a statute really ‘says’ was be trusted, but the
reference to it. On a more general scale, one may argue that by establishing
independent texts that could function as points of reference, late medieval
society might have regained a security that may have been lost because of its
ever-growing complexity. |
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